Geekfoolery

Mr. Alex, your host here on Geekfoolery for the past year+ since its inception in Dec 2006, has some new digs on gadget blog, Gizmos for Geeks. Don’t worry, Mr. Alex will still be waxing philosophically on all manner of technology, trends and downright geekiness in the style you’ve come to know and love. Without further ado, hit the ubiquitous link to see what he has been up to lately.

And if you’re looking for what is sure to become his classic Geekfoolery work, it will be right here.

Mr. Alex’s article archive at Gizmos for Geeks.

Once again, the film industry is working itself up into its annual lather to hand out prizes to Hollywood’s versions of Employee of the Month. As usual, no one I know has seen, or in some cases, even heard of the movies in contention. So instead, I am going to take the opportunity to review some complaints that I, as a geek, have had about movies over the years.

1. Hackers: It seems as if every awkward guy from about age 12 to maybe as old as 25 who has ever had an AOL account or played a Playstation is a grungy, arrogant, mom’s-basement-dwelling geek hacker who is never more than a few clackity keystrokes away from announcing, “I’m in” before clicking on a garish button that says “Launch Network Virus” and wreaking havoc.
   In Live Free or Die Hard, the Bruce Willis franchise is updated from the sophisticated bank-robbery plots of the first couple sequels to an even more complex hacker plot to cripple the nation with coordinated infrastructure cyberattacks. The bad guys are evil geeks that can take out traffic lights, cellphone networks, and the power grid from their laptops. The good guys include Justin Long, the “Mac” guy from Apple’s Mac and PC ads. Justin tags along as a good-guy hacker in over his head, complimenting the more primitive action-hero stylings of Bruce Willis. While I don’t demand strict realism in a Die Hard franchise, we at least have to be kept from leaping through the more obvious plot holes until after the movie. The story starts plausibly enough by suggesting that the mastermind spent a great deal of time and money planning his cyberattack. But it’s still too easy for the writers to turn their hackers into invincible omnipotent god’s eye masters of the universe. They can still hack anything from anywhere, most notably in the absurd climactic chase scene, where the evil hacker geniuses, while driving at breakneck speed are able to call up a high-tech F-22 jet from the Air Force to take out their pursuer. My willing suspension of disbelief dropped at that point of the movie like a cell phone call between towers.

Read more…

It is always a good idea to wait about a week or so before committing to an opinion after one of Steve Jobs’ MacWorld keynotes, just to give the Reality Distortion Field time to dissipate.

It’s easy to get totally sucked in, and come away thinking that a computer shaped like a cube is going to be The Next Big Thing, or, if you’re trying to overcompensate, to come out and say that Apple thinking they can play with big boys in the cell phone market is lunacy of the highest order.
The big deal this time was the MacBook Air. Jobs pulled it out of a manila envelope, and everyone, including me, oohed and ahhed with envy. It is a glorious, sexy, machine. Reviewers have gushed over it, while others have pointed its lack of optical drive, ports, user replaceable battery, and high price tag. I think both sides make valid points, and the official Geekfoolery prediction is that Apple is going to sell every one they make, and people who buy them will make every effort to be seen using them in coffee shops. Expect more than a few people to carry them around in manila envelopes just so they can feel like Steve.

But as cool as the MacBook Air is, it’s really just another laptop. In one or two more laptop generations, you’ll be able to get nearly all the same features in the laptop of your choice, but apart from saving a little shoulder strain, there’s nothing in the Macbook Air that will fundamentally change what you do with your computer. Read more…

Last summer, as gas prices climbed up past $3.50 a gallon here in California, I was increasingly frustrated with my 70-mile-a-day commute, made worse by the fact that LA traffic not only was costing me more than $10 a day in gas, but I was also at least 3 hours a day behind the wheel of my car. My solution: A motorized bicycle.

Promising 200+ miles per gallon, I figured the engine would pay for itself in a couple of months in gas savings alone. And if it didn’t work, or was too much of a hassle, I only had to use it for eight weeks or so and I would come out ahead. And even though I’d be going on surface streets, I estimated via Google Maps that I’d be about even on commuting time. Read more…

Christmas brought a couple new camera gadgets into the Geekfoolery household. We’ve just returned from a 2400-mile road trip where we’ve put  these devices through their paces. Here now a quick review:

Eye-Fi: The Eye-Fi card appears to be a standard-issue 2GB SD memory card, but the secret is the built-in WiFi transmitter. The Eye-Fi’s gadget magic trick is automatically downloading pictures you take with your digital camera to your computer, either as you take them, if you are in range, or when you return home. It works on PC and Mac, and the software you need to install on your machine comes pre-loaded on the card itself, which ships with it’s own USB SD card reader.

Additionally, you can set up your Eye-Fi to automatically upload pictures directly to online album sites like Flickr, Picasa, and most of the popular album sites. Read more…

So here we are, less than a week to go before Christmas. There’s still time to shop online, if you don’t mind paying extra for shipping, and there’s a solid 3 days this weekend to pick over the unsold dregs at the mall. It is about this part of the season where I start to really get sick of Christmas music, and I wonder how retail workers keep from going postal. Read more…